Justice and Human Rights Israel Project #39892

Defending Palestinians with Strategic Litigation

by Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel

Project Report | Sep 1, 2022
Adalah's Strategic Legal Cases

By Ranna Khalil | Researcher

Photo: Scene of the killing of Y.Q./ Activestills.

Dear friends,

Warm regards to you from Adalah.

In this report, we update you about Adalah's recent work and Israeli Supreme Court decisions in the following cases: Granting sweeping impunity to the Israeli army and police; Land Grab in Jerusalem; and Revocation of citizenship for "breach of loyalty".

GRANTING SWEEPING IMPUNITY TO THE ISRAELI ARMY AND POLICE

Israeli Supreme Court rules no redress, no remedies for Gaza victims

In early August, Israel launched an intensive air offensive on the Gaza Strip, killing 47 Palestinians, including 16 children, and injuring 360 more (Palestinian Ministry of Health figures, 7 August 2022). This recent killing and injuring of civilians in Gaza is a result of the Israeli authorities’ shielding of their armed forces from accountability measures for their actions, both criminal and civil. On 5 July 2022, the Israeli Supreme Court (SC) rejected an appeal filed by Adalah and Al-Mezan demanding civil tort compensation for a Palestinian family following the severe injury of their 15-year-old son, who was left in a wheel chair for life after he was shot by the Israeli military in 2014, outside of any “act of war”.

In this case, Adalah and Al Mezan challenged the 2012 amendment to Israel's Civil Wrongs Law (State Responsibility)-1952, which prescribes that residents of an “enemy territory” are not eligible for compensation from Israel. Israel declared Gaza to be “enemy territory” in 2007, following the takeover by Hamas. The law grants total, sweeping immunity for Israel from all liability for any damages, in violation of Israeli and international law. In its decision, while the SC acknowledged that the law infringes on fundamental rights of Gaza residents, it maintained that immunity is appropriate in order “to prevent economic and moral assistance to the enemy.”

Adalah and Al Mezan: “This decision not only grants sweeping immunity to the Israeli military to injure Palestinians wherever they are, but also determines, in a radical move, that the deliberate denial of compensation is an appropriate tool for harming the enemy. There is no clearer evidence of the fact that the Israeli legal system is committed to the legitimization of war crimes and to assisting the military in its efforts, by denying all legal remedies to victims, especially when, at the same time, the Court refuses to intervene in the state’s closure of criminal investigations into alleged war crimes and thus also providing impunity for criminal actions committed by the Israeli military."

The NGOs will demand a second hearing by an expanded panel of the SC on the case.

Demanding police accountability for the killing of a Palestinian citizen of Israel

Following a TV interview with a high official, Adalah sent a letter on 26 July 2022 to the Attorney General, the State Attorney (SA), and the Chief of the Police Investigation Department (PID) demanding to re-open an investigation into the 2017 police killing of Y.Q., a Palestinian citizen of Israel, during a home demolition operation in his village of Umm al-Hiran in the Naqab (Negev). In the interview, the former Deputy Chief of PID, M.S., revealed that the former SA and former chief of police pressured the PID to close the probe.

In the letter, Adalah argued that the statements by M.S. supported our deep suspicions of a conflict of interest within the SA’s Office that led to this unreasonable decision. In the interview, M.S. spoke of extreme pressure by public figures, coupled with a flawed investigation during which key evidence was ignored. The police killing of Y.Q. is yet another stark example of the lack accountability and the impunity granted to Israeli police forces in the killing of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

LAND GRAB IN JERUSALEM

US Embassy in Jerusalem to be built on privately-owned Palestinian land

In 2019, the US relocated its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, choosing a temporary site before moving to its permanent location. Documents recently obtained by Adalah from the Israeli state archive reveal that the planned site of the new US Embassy compound will be located on privately-owned Palestinian land, which was illegally seized by the state pursuant to 1950 Israeli Absentees’ Property Law. The Plan, currently in the advanced stages of the approval process, was submitted in 2021 by the US State Department and the Israeli Land Authority to the Israeli planning authorities. The descendants of the Palestinian landowners, including residents of Jerusalem and US citizens, demand that Israel release their properties and that the US Administration cancel the plan.

Adalah’s Legal Director: "This plan is a serious escalation in the US legitimization of the illegal Israeli seizure of Palestinian land using the 1950 Absentees’ Property Law. Under this law, Israel dispossessed Palestinian refugees, internally displaced Palestinian citizens of Israel, and residents of illegally annexed East Jerusalem from their property in the years following the Nakba in 1948 and again in 1967. This legislation is an arbitrary, racially-based, discriminatory, and sweeping law for land confiscation with far-reaching implications. The US Embassy plan will violate the private property rights of Palestinian landowners, and the internationally-established right of Palestinian refugees to return and gain restitution of their properties."

In response to a media inquiry, the US State Department stated that it was now “engaged in a process that will culminate in [the] construction of a new embassy in Jerusalem", and that “The site of that new embassy has not yet been confirmed.”

The plan and the newly discovered evidence, which was revealed by Adalah on 10 July 2022 during Biden's visit in Israel, made headlines in local and international media, receiving wide coverage, including feature stories in the New York Times, NBC News, Democracy Now, and Haaretz.

R.K., a US citizen and a descendant of Palestinian landowners of this property, told Democracy Now: “The fact that the US government is now participating actively with the Israeli government in this project means that it is actively infringing on the property rights of the legitimate owners of these properties, including many US citizens… By putting the US Embassy in Jerusalem, the US is violating resolutions of the UN that it voted for: for Jerusalem to be an international city and for nothing to be done in Jerusalem that would jeopardize the final status of that city… We are demanding that the US not build an embassy on our land. This is our property. It’s not the property of the state of Israel to give or rent or lease to the US."

NO CITIZENSHIP WITHOUT LOYALTY

The Israeli Supreme Court upholds a dangerous law, which permits the revocation of citizenship for "breach of loyalty"

On 21 July 2022, the Israeli Supreme Court (SC) rejected a 2017 lower court decision to strip A. Z., a Palestinian citizen of Israel, of his citizenship, but upheld a 2008 law that allows for the Interior Minister to revoke the citizenship of individuals convicted of offenses that constitute a "breach of loyalty" against the State of Israel, even if the person becomes stateless. Adalah and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) represented A.Z. in this case.

Criminal offenses that constitute a "breach of loyalty" include an act of terrorism; an act of treason or serious espionage; or the acquisition of citizenship or the right of permanent residency in a hostile state or in hostile territory.

Since the law’s enactment, the Interior Minister has applied it selectively, only to Palestinian citizens of Israel. In the 31 cases considered for the revocation of citizenship, no request was ever made to strip a Jewish-Israeli citizen of citizenship, despite a number of extremely serious incidents in which Jewish citizens murdered Palestinians or other Jewish citizens. This fact shows a racist and discriminatory pattern that exclusively singles out Palestinian citizens based on their national belonging.

Read in the link below: Adalah’s Q&A on the Supreme Court judgment and its implications.

Read Adalah's 2021 annual report to learn more about our work.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support for Adalah’s work.We sincerely appreciate it.

In solidarity,

Ranna Khalil

Photo: U.S. Embassy Jerusalem, Wikimedia Commons

Israeli and national ID / Shutterstock

Adalah's annual report

Links:

Q&A:SC judgement on stripping citizenship for breach of loyalty

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Apr 29, 2022
New strategic litigation cases undertaken by Adalah

By Ranna Khalil | Researcher

Hmeid Family, a petitioner. Photo by: Sama Haddad

Dear friends,

Many greetings to you from Adalah.

In this update we highlight three new strategic litigation cases undertaken by Adalah. In these cases, Adalah challenged racist and discriminatory laws, policies and procedures before Israeli courts, as follows:

A law banning Palestinian family unification in Israel;
A procedure for appointing teachers in Arab special needs and other schools;
A demand to open employment bureaus in poverty-stricken Palestinian Bedouin towns in the Naqab

BAN ON PALESTINIAN FAMILY UNIFICATION

The newly-legislated Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) – 2022 – a new version of the 2003 Law – continues to prohibit the granting of legal status in Israel to Palestinians from the OPT or Israeli-defined “enemy states”, who are married to Palestinian citizens of Israel or residents of Jerusalem. For the first time, the Law explicitly states that it is intended to ensure a Jewish demographic majority.

Adalah petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court in March 2022, on behalf of three Palestinian families against the law, demanding that it be revoked. Adalah argued that it is a racist and discriminatory law that violates the right to establish a family, and allows the state to operate on two separate citizenship tracks based on national and ethnic affiliation under the eternal pretext of temporality.

Watch a webinar hosted by the Foundation for Middle East Peace and Adalah on 26 April, featuring: Adalah’s General Director, Dr. Hassan Jabareen, MK Aida Touma-Sliman, Dr. Morad El-Sana, one of the first petitioners against the 2003 law, and Lara Friedman, President of the FMEP.

WHO DECIDES ABOUT TEACHERS' APPOINTMENTS IN ARAB SCHOOLS

For decades, the Israeli Education Ministry has employed two separate tracks for appointing teachers: in Jewish schools, the principals have complete discretion for selecting teachers, while in Arab schools, selection is based on a scoring system and principals have no discretion. In February 2022, Adalah filed a petition to the Jerusalem District Court on behalf of Jusour- Bridges for Autism and the Chair of the Parents' Committee in Amar School in Haifa, Ms. Hanin Shomli, seeking to exclude Arab special education schools from this discriminatory procedure.

Dr. Kareem Nasser, an occupational therapist specializing in the education of autistic children, who gave an expert opinion in the case: ”The appointment procedure in Arab schools leads to the prioritization of teachers whose qualifications do not meet students’ needs, resulting in many Arab parents choosing to enroll their children in Jewish special education institutions. Those children are prevented from receiving education in their native language based on their own cultural values and traditions, thus impeding their developmental skills and preventing them from realizing their right to becoming equal and active members of society, achieving independence and full integration in family and community life.”

Read what Adalah’s lawyer and the petitioners say about this policy

LACK OF EMPLOYMENT BUREAUS IN NAQAB BEDOUIN TOWNS

Despite having the highest unemployment and poverty rates in the country and the lowest socio-economic ranking, six Bedouin towns in the Naqab have no state-run employment centers; rather, job-seekers from these towns, as well as from nearby Bedouin villages, including the unrecognized villages, are directed to fairly distant Israeli Jewish cities. There is little to no public transport from these towns to the cities, and the existing centers are linguistically and culturally foreign. Employment centers provide unemployment benefits and offer job opportunities and vocational training for job seekers and assist employers in finding employees.

Adalah petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court in March 2022, on behalf of the local councils of four Bedouin villages, the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality and the Sidra Association, demanding the establishment of employment centers in Hura, Kuseife, Leqiya, A’ra’ara, Shqieb A-Salam (Segev Shalom), and Tal A-Sabei (Tel Sheva); Rahat is the only Bedouin town in Naqab which has a center. The high unemployment rates of Bedouins and the wide gaps, in general, between Palestinian Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel, are the result of, and have been maintained by, decades-long discriminatory state policies.

Click here to see Adalah’s News, 29 April 2022: Strategic Litigation

Thank you for your continued support of Adalah’s work.

Tal A-Sabei (Tel Sheva). Photo by: Saul Davis

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Dec 21, 2021
Adalah: Happy Holidays and Highlights of our work in 2021

By Ranna Khalil | Researcher

Dear Friends and Supporters,

On behalf of the Adalah team, I wish you and your families a happy, healthy holiday and New Year. I also thank you for your steadfast support for Adalah in 2021, which has been a particularly tumultuous year.

The May 2021 events were a seminal moment. In May, we witnessed a deadly escalation in violence in Israel and the OPT, sparked by Israel’s brutal repression of protests against the eviction of Palestinian refugee families from Sheikh Jarrah. Hostilities spread to the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex and Gaza, where Israeli airstrikes killed 240 people, including 65 children. Palestinian citizens of Israel took to the streets across the country to demonstrate, and were met by extreme violence by police and ultra-right wing Jewish Israeli vigilante groups.

In response to the May 2021 events, Adalah represented dozens of Palestinian citizen protestors detained and viciously beaten by police, and secured their release from detention with less harsh conditions, including political leaders unjustly charged with incitement. We also helped draw international scrutiny to the violence and incitement against Palestinian citizens by Jewish Israeli vigilante groups and senior Israeli officials, which culminated in the opening of an unprecedented investigation by the UN into the events and their root causes on both sides of the Green Line.

Another milestone was the announcement by the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court of the opening of a criminal investigation into the “Situation in Palestine.” This watershed decision confirms what Adalah and many other human rights organizations have maintained for years: that Israel is committing war crimes against the Palestinian people, and that there is no accountability under the Israeli legal system.

More upheaval followed when Israel designated six of the most prominent Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations as “terrorist organizations”, shocking the international community. These groups are the most vocal in resisting the Israeli occupation and its apartheid policies, and some are active before the ICC. Adalah is providing legal advice and assistance to the Palestinian 6 against Israel’s transparent attempt to silence, delegitimize and defund them.

Click Here to view a slideshow of Highlights of Adalah's work in 2021

Despite the many challenges posed by these events, and working under the long shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, Adalah’s team obtained major positive results from its legal and advocacy work. Successes included securing vaccines for the most vulnerable Palestinian groups and prisoners, and the publication of emergency health information in Arabic by public health bodies. We were honoured to receive a prestigious international award from the World Justice Project in 2021 for our COVID-19 litigation.

Continuing the fight against forced displacement in the Naqab, Adalah successfully cancelled evictions orders that were filed without notice against Bedouin residents of Segev Shalom; halted the construction of a phosphate mine, which could have resulted in mass home demolitions; and contributed to the shelving of a plan to set up refugee camps for Bedouin targeted for forcible displacement.

Given the harsh, draconian measures taken by Israel against the Palestinian people, Adalah is all the more proud of these activities, through which we defend Palestinians’ human rights on both sides of the Green Line.

On behalf of the Adalah team, I sincerely appreciate you, our partners in this work, and we can only meet the challenges of 2022 together. Please consider welcoming 2022 with a gift to Adalah.

With gratitude, yours sincerely,

Dr. Hassan Jabareen
General Director of Adalah

We urgently need your support to meet the coming challenges and to continue with our critical work.

Please consider an end-of-year donation or a monthly recurring gift.

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